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Background books - Focus on Content-Based Language Teaching

Modern English Teacher, 25 (3), July, 2016

Focus on Content-Based
Language Teaching

Patsy M. Lightbown
Oxford University Press 2014

In Focus on Content-Based Language
Teaching Patsy Lightbown examines
the challenges of teaching a second or
foreign language while also teaching
another academic subject. After
drawing on evidence from classroom-based
research into content-based
language teaching (CBLT), she
identifies some instructional practices
to overcome these challenges.

After a brief introduction outlining
the structure of the book, there are
five substantive chapters, followed
by suggestions for further reading,
a useful glossary of key terms, a set
of references to works cited in the book, and a comprehensive index of
concepts covered.

The first chapter, Approaches to CBLT,
begins with three classroom snapshots
to illustrate different approaches to
interaction in CBLT classrooms. This
is followed by a reflective activity in
which readers are invited to indicate the
extent to which they agree or disagree
with a set of 14 statements about CBLT.
The chapter then reviews the historical
background of CBLT, and a description
of how it has been variously applied to
meet the needs of both majority- and
minority-language students. Among
other examples, Lightbown discusses
how in 2003 Malaysia introduced the
teaching of mathematics and science in
English to all secondary school students
in state schools, but abandoned the
policy in 2009 to return to teaching these
subjects in the vernacular language. The
author points out that ‘in these settings
and in others, it is often difficult to find
teachers who have the combination of
adequate L2 proficiency, specialized
subject matter knowledge, and training
in foreign language pedagogy’ (p14).
After discussing appropriate pedagogical
practice, she returns to this important
issue towards the end of the chapter in
the section entitled Who teaches? and
emphasises the importance of adequate
professional development for both
content teachers and language specialists
in order to ensure that students make
sound progress in both aspects.

Chapter 2, Learning Language and
Learning Content, begins with a brief
review of what Second Language
Acquisition (SLA) theories report about
the need for time-on-task, whether
instruction should be provided intensively
or extensively, and the learner’s age. The
central part of the chapter is taken up
with a discussion of Stephen Krashen’s
(Krashen, 1989) comprehensible
input hypothesis, which argued that
if input is comprehensible and the
learner is not under stress, language
acquisition is inevitable. Lightbown
points out that ‘comprehensible input
is the essential starting point for second
language acquisition’ (p46) and briefly
mentions Merrill Swain’s (Swain, 1985)
comprehensible output hypothesis, which
argues that learners need to be pushed to produce language (orally or in writing)
in order to get feedback about what they
still do not know. There is an all-too-brief
discussion of the important distinction,
identified by Jim Cummins (Cummins,
1984) between basic interpersonal
language skills and cognitive academic
language proficiency. Several other
issues are discussed – skill learning and
practice, memory and retrieval, corrective
feedback, cooperative/collaborative
learning, and vocabulary learning –
before Lightbown wraps up the chapter
with A Framework for CBLT Pedagogy.
The four phases of this are: meaning-focused
input, meaning-focused output,
fluency development, and language-focused
learning. Bearing in mind the
essentially dual focus of CBLT, there
are two important caveats about this
framework. Firstly, the meaning-focus
input provides no indication of how
grade-appropriate curricular content
might be simplified without being watered
down. Secondly, the language in focus in
the fourth stage appears to be limited to
lower order concerns such as verb forms,
pronunciation and syntax. Nothing is said
about academic language proficiency
– that for example, history reports are
structured very differently from scientific
experiments. While this may not be so
important in primary classrooms, the
generic features of curricular discourse
does need to be explicitly taught to senior
students. The problem is that the sort of
SLA research that Lightbown cites has
little to say about such matters.

In Chapter 3, Classroom-Based
Research on CBLT with Young Learners,
Lightbown begins by citing research that
clearly indicates that ‘early literacy in
L1 is a good foundation for L2 learning’
(p76) both in immersion and dual
language programmes. She goes on
to discuss Learning Content in CBLT,
focusing on the use of simplified texts
to promote comprehensible input;
here, she does acknowledge some
limitations of such materials, and
provides a snapshot of a teacher in a
dual immersion programme using about
a dozen techniques to overcome some
of these. One was that she ‘encouraged
students to discuss their work and help
others seated at the same table if help
was needed’ and another was that she
‘replied in Spanish if the students spoke in English, and encouraged them to
repeat the question in Spanish’ (p81).
It would have been appropriate here
to have discussed in more detail the
issue of switching between L1 and L2.
This would be even more important
in the next section on Group-Work in
Content Learning, where the advantages
of cooperative learning are stated and
then illustrated in another classroom
snapshot. It is difficult to believe that
such groups of young students would
not code-switch at times, and – if they
did keep strictly to the target language
– whether they were able to discuss
the topic as accurately and efficiently
as they would in English. The chapter
concludes with brief sections on
Vocabulary Learning and Corrective
Feedback and Language Focused
Learning: the latter focuses entirely
on low level concerns identified in
students’ oral production; are students at
this age not pushed to produce written
output in the target language?

The fourth chapter follows the same
pattern as Chapter 3, but with its focus
on adolescent learners, acknowledging
that ‘the demands and expectations for
both language proficiency and academic
learning in the secondary school are
substantial’ (p101). Lightbown presents
and discusses three classroom snapshots
based on studies that show approaches
that have led students to effectively learn
academic content. She again points
to the abandonment of the maths and
science policy in Malaysia, and suggests
that it ‘may be said to have ended
before some of the types of professional
development and curriculum reform that
might have succeeded had time to work’
(p112). It might also be argued that such
reforms should have been implemented
before the ill-fated policy was introduced.
In next considering Learning Language
in CBLT, Lightbown begins by weighing
the advantages and disadvantages faced
by adolescents compared to younger
learners. She then considers the effects of
time spent on language learning and the
end-of-school outcomes of CBLT students
with those who studied English as a
subject, and cites one study in Germany
that revealed that the performance of
the former was ‘dramatically better’
(p117) than the latter. However, she
cites the point made by Langabaster (Langabaster, 2008: 38) that students
who elected, or were selected, to follow
CBLT programmes may have been more
motivated and more highly gifted than
the others. Turning to language issues,
as in the previous chapter, she again
focuses on vocabulary and sentence-level
forms rather than higher order
concerns such as the discourse features
of academic subjects.

In the final, brief chapter, CBLT: What
We Know Now, the author offers her own
responses to the list of 14 statements she
asked readers to reflect upon in Chapter
1. On the whole, she makes soundly
balanced points and acknowledges the
many difficulties involved in teaching
content and language programmes. She
concludes: ‘It is clear from the research on
CBLT in classrooms around the world that
students and teachers have to work harder
than their peers to accomplish the dual
goal. It’s worth the effort’(pp137–138).

I enjoyed reading this book; Patsy
Lightbown writes clearly and
persuasively about a great many
important issues uncovered by research
into CBLT, and their pedagogical
implications. As indicated above, she
does skirt around some important
issues in her advocacy of CBLT. She
cites extensive research that suggests
that CBLT can be beneficial – in some
contexts. Those contexts, as she is
careful to explain, and as discussed in
a number of MET articles between 2013
and 2015, require bilingual teachers,
an appropriately tailored curriculum,
specially prepared teaching and learning
materials, and adequate professional
development for both content and
English teachers. Some education
systems, such as those in Germany,
have done just this with successful
results. However, those schools where
CBLT has been introduced have been
selective in terms of student motivation,
intelligence and cultural (and financial)
capital. Unfortunately, many countries
elsewhere – and Malaysia is just one
example – have tended to jump onto
this bandwagon and introduced CBLT
across the education sector without
sufficient planning, curricular reform or
essential resources. To do so is to set up
students and teachers for failure. In such
cases, CBLT is not worth the effort.